While children dress up and go door to door on Halloween night as they’ve done for decades, Ireland now hosts two major festivals that celebrate the season. In Northern Ireland, Derry Halloween is Europe’s biggest Halloween Festival. Further south, in Co. Meath, I have fond memories of being part of another major Halloween festival in its early days. In the wee hours of the morning of Tuesday, 26th October, 2021, the band Coscán gathered in the darkness at Slane Castle, Co. Meath. Famous as a venue for big concerts since 1981, the castle that year hosted events in The Púca Festival, a celebration of Halloween that has grown considerably since its inception in 2019. Coscán in 2021 played as part of the festival at Slane Castle on Halloween Night. We were there that Tuesday morning to take part in Virgin One’s Ireland AM programme, which was featuring events in the Púca Festival. Although the festival now centres on Trim and Athboy, it was great to be part of it when it was in Slane.

The festival celebrates Ireland as the home of Halloween. While many people might associate Halloween with American movies and customs, there is a far older custom of celebrating Halloween, and before that the ancient festival of Samhain, in Ireland. Irish mythology, medieval literature, folklore, archaeology and history are full of evidence that relates to the festivals of Samhain and Halloween. In early Irish literature, the festival of Samhain marked summer’s end and the beginning of the dark half of the year. Many Irish myths and legends are centred around events that take place at Samhain, when the boundaries between this world and the otherworld were believed to disappear. The harvest was in, and people celebrated with feasting, storytelling, music and dance. Major festivals involving bonfires took place at ancient sites like Tara and Tlachtga (The Hill of Ward), both in Co. Meath. In the same county, Newgrange and one of the passage tombs at Loughcrew also had associations with Samhain, as did sites in other parts of the country, like Crúachu in Co. Roscommon. Early Irish law (or Brehon law) shows that this was also an important time of the year in farming.

The Samhain festival took place around the end of October and over a thousand years ago, in Early Medieval times, the Church moved the feast of All Saints or All Hallows to November 1st. So October 31st became the evening before All Hallows or ‘Hallowe’en’. Customs associated with the Samhain festival were practiced at Halloween and, in the 10th century, the Church began to celebrate the feast of All Souls, commemorating the dead, on November 2nd. Ireland shared some customs with other parts of Europe, including Scotland, where the 18th century poet Robbie Burns became one of the first poets to write a poem in English about Halloween. The English singer/songwriter Sting recorded a Halloween song called ‘Soul Cakes’ in 2009 which echoes very old customs also found in Ireland.

The Irish who emigrated to the US and Canada from the 19th century seem to have brought many of their Halloween customs with them and over time these developed to become the Halloween celebrations that we know today. So the Púca Festival incorporates elements of the modern Halloween with echoes of the centuries old festival of Samhain.

A Púca (sometimes spelt Pooka) is a legendary, shape-shifting creature that can be both mischievous and wise, appearing in many folk tales down through the centuries. As the festival website says, he “can bring both blessings and tricks, embodying the mystical energy that defines Halloween in Irish folklore.” In 2005 I composed a tune called ‘The Pooka Polka’ for a collection of whistle tunes published by Walton’s of Dublin. This tune features in the final lesson of the Beginner’s Tin Whistle video course on this website. If you wish, you can learn the tune by ear, but staff notation is also provided.